An eight-month girl has been admitted to Mater Dei Hospital with septicaemia, the third child with a bacterial infection in two weeks.
Health authorities, who alerted the media about the case, reassured the public that there was no epidemic in the community or at hospitals in Malta.
Medical Director Walter Busuttil said that two of the three cases – which have already been reported by the media – had unrelated bacterial meningitis.
One of the two, a four-year-old boy, had passed away, while the condition of a three-week-old baby who was admitted to hospital last week, is improving.
The two cases were caused by two different types of bacterial meningitis.
On average, around 11 people of all ages are admitted to Mater Dei Hospital with bacterial meningitis every year.
The third child, admitted on Sunday night, is suffering from a totally different infection, known as septicaemia.
“They are all unrelated, there is no pandemic at Mater Dei Hospital or in the community. All three children had no contact with other children and all precautions have been taken by the health authorities,” Mr Busuttil said.
“There is no cause for alarm, and we want to put the public’s mind at rest. At the hospital we see these bacterial infections every year, and they are very rare.”
He urged parents to contact their GP immediately in case of symptoms such as a rash, high fever, or a change in their child’s behaviour.
Consultant paediatrician Paul Soler noted that parents would immediately notice any change in attitude in newborns, such as new spots on their skin, refusing to drink, being lethargic or suddenly altering their sleeping patterns.
Such infections, he reiterated, were very rare in children.
Read: What you can do to prevent meningitis
Asked to explain three bacterial infections in two weeks, Superintendent of Public Health Charmaine Gauci said this was a matter of coincidence and they were not related in any manner.
She reiterated that bacterial meningitis spread only through very close contact.
The authorities had taken all the necessary precautions, and apart from carrying out a risk assessment of each case, if a patient attended school or a nursery, health representatives contacted parents of the other children to reassure them that the disease did not spread.
Prof. Gauci is not aware of any case where the infection was transmitted from one child to another.
Read: Meningitis – everything you need to know
She urged people to wash their hands whenever they could, while those who feel unwell should avoid crowded places.
Although the four-year-old who had passed away was vaccinated against meningitis, vaccination was the best prevention against such diseases, she added.